13-man field starts 10-race run for series championship at Chicagoland

JOLIET, Ill. — Kyle Busch has won two NASCAR races this weekend. Jeff Gordon this week appeared at two big charity events, including one with tennis great Martina Navratilova. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is supposed to have his spotter back after a two-week illness.

The casual NASCAR fan probably hadn’t heard much about any of those things. The focus on NASCAR has moved off the track as stock car racing grapples with credibility issues of team orders that surfaced in one of the roughest weeks for NASCAR in several years.

For some, just racing will help themselves move on from the controversies. For the sport, just having the green flag drop Sunday will be something to celebrate as their version of the postseason get started with hopefully the tense competition all on the up-and-up.

"Because of that competitive drive, it pushes us sometimes to do things that even we question," said Gordon, a four-time Cup champion who made his first career start in 1992. "Through all of this, I think that the integrity of the sport has been put at question.

"We have one of the greatest sports that exists. To see our integrity get questioned is very upsetting to me, and I think we, along with NASCAR, have to solve this."

Whenever this race gets started (it is scheduled for a 2:16 p.m. ET green flag but rain is in the forecast), it won't be soon enough after a week of allegations of three different Cup organizations working to manipulate who gets in the playoffs and after NASCAR twice revised its postseason field.

"The world ain't coming to the end," said Richard Petty, a seven-time Cup champion and inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee, as he tried to calm the frenzy. "You can go back and talk to … any of them (owners) that have been here very long, they would tell you they have come up with something that shouldn't have been done or didn't get caught."

This time, teams were caught trying to cloud the Chase for the Sprint Cup, a racing format with a playoff that has been among the biggest accomplishments of NASCAR chairman Brian France's 10-year tenure in his role governing the sport.

France tweaked the format over the years, including introducing a wild-card format in 2011 where the top-10 drivers in points earn automatic bids and then two spots are available to those 11th-20th with the most wins.

That created an incredible drama going into the race that completed the Chase field.

But it helped create a situation last week at Richmond where Michael Waltrip Racing's Clint Bowyer (whose spin is widely considered intentional to bring out the caution) and teammate Brian Vickers (who pitted under green in the last few laps) helped MWR's Martin Truex Jr. get in the Chase.

But in doing that, it didn't just knock out Ryan Newman; MWR's actions also worked to help Joey Logano, which came at the expense of Gordon. It was as if one last-minute drive impacted three different games on the final day of the regular season.

It was a confusing and bizarre situation, one difficult to explain but easy to know as distasteful, made even more sour when allegations surfaced of Logano's team working a deal with fellow Ford team Front Row Motorsports to help Logano get an additional finishing position.

Amid the drama, NASCAR issued penalties — including a record $300,000 fine to MWR and an indefinite suspension to its GM Ty Norris — that knocked Truex out of the Chase and put Newman in, while it also added Gordon as a 13th driver to the Chase field since he had been impacted by the events.

"It's unfortunate but penalties have always been a part of this sport," Bowyer said. "For our sport, the most important thing is a great Chase fixing to start."

Bowyer of course meant that a great Chase is getting ready to start when he used the term "fixing," but it was kind of appropriate that sometimes things can get confused in the translation of what's a team order that goes beyond the bounds of reason and what's just being a good team player.

In an attempt to define boundaries, France established rules Saturday requiring drivers to give 100 percent effort and not manipulate the finish of races.

"We are all competitors trying to find an advantage where we can," said Logano, who is on the pole for the race Sunday. "Anytime you can clarify rules it helps our sport. … I thought today that meeting was necessary and I am glad we had it. I am glad we can put it all behind us now and look ahead into the Chase."

But before everyone moves on, there will be more new rules that NASCAR will unveil Sunday morning. With NASCAR having to make more and more judgment calls on restarts as drivers try to game the system, it will announce rules at the prerace drivers meeting, NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said Saturday.

That will create at least a small diversion from NASCAR's ethical line and possibly help its credibility if the race comes down to a late-race restart.

So let the Chase begin. The Chase that will determine the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title, and NASCAR's chase to build its credibility and integrity back with the fans.

"What we're about is the best racing in the world with the best drivers giving 100 percent of their ability," France said. "To the extent that we get off that for any reason, then it's our job to have the rules of the road and the rules of the race such that it achieves that every day.

"If it's not this, it might be something else. You deal with it. We have dealt with it the best that we can, and we move on."